


his wendybird

by inwhispersandscreams



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-22
Updated: 2014-01-22
Packaged: 2018-01-09 14:46:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,088
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1147245
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/inwhispersandscreams/pseuds/inwhispersandscreams
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In the stories, the boy that never grows old builds a house for his Wendybird because she fell from the sky. He built it around her, made shutters and window drapes out of scraps of cloth that billowed in the soft, warm breeze of Neverland, and pressed acorn measures of water against her soft lips until she woke. He pressed berries between his fingers until they burst and the colours of them could be imprinted upon the cloth in the roughest dye that a boy like him could make, and waiting for her to wake.</p><p>These are lies.</p>
            </blockquote>





	his wendybird

**Author's Note:**

  * For [winterbones](https://archiveofourown.org/users/winterbones/gifts).



In the stories, the boy that never grows old builds a house for his Wendybird because she fell from the sky. He built it around her, made shutters and window drapes out of scraps of cloth that billowed in the soft, warm breeze of Neverland, and pressed acorn measures of water against her soft lips until she woke. He pressed berries between his fingers until they burst and the colours of them could be imprinted upon the cloth in the roughest dye that a boy like him could make, and waiting for her to wake.

These are lies.

In reality, he takes her – steals her – locks her in a cage and bends his ear to her when she raises her voice to speak. She enthrals him from the start; not quite a lost boy, though there is something wild in her nature, not quite a mother, something he craves and something he fears to let too close to himself. So he puts her in a cage, because if she is behind bars, then her words cannot reach him, and the sight of her cannot haunt his thoughts like a ghost. If he cannot see her, cannot hear her, then whatever nameless thing he fears from her will never touch him, and Pan is a boy who hates to be caught.

But he is still the one to bring her food and when she speaks to him, the world stills and hinges on the sounds that drip from her lips. “If I am to be caged, why must it be so cruel and miserly?”

In the stories, they’ll tell you that Peter Pan built a house for his Wendybird because he thought it would make her well. In reality, he builds her a house because she wishes for one. In reality, he builds her a house because no matter how much he fears her, he is enthralled by her just as much.

They play these games; it is their way. She asks for flowers, telling him that this home is cold and unhomely, and he sends his boys to fetch her flowers with a voice that turns the words into a rough order. He will tell her that she has no need for flowers and houses and drapes that blow in the wind, and she will speak softly and for a moment, his words will halt as he listens for each syllable and sound in her sweet, soft voice. When the boys return with the flowers, she plucks the petals from them and scatters them on the floor, letting them press into the earth with her footsteps. Sometimes, she places the flowers in her tangled, snarling mess of golden hair, and the nameless fear in him stirs again. This is when he is cruellest to her, when the fear sets in. He is _Peter Pan_ , and he is never to be afraid, but she makes him afraid.

And she becomes his alone, his secret in a house he made her on her words. Pan trusts no one else with her, because she’ll get to him, and only he is strong enough to resist her, to resist whatever strange power resides within her that makes him want to tangle long fingers within her hair, that makes him crave what is not a lost boy nor a mother nor the key to his own immortality. She is  _other_ , and that defies the rules of this world –  _his_ world – but he keeps her still, watches her as she plucks petals from the flowers he tugged roughly from the earth and presented to her and hums a tune he doesn’t know under her breath. He spends long amounts of time in that house he made her, often in silence, waiting for her words, waiting for the moment when he can unravel the mystery that is Wendy.

It doesn’t come.

She tells him of her mother, who has a kiss ever present at the corner of her mouth. He snaps and snarls, because he doesn’t want talk of mothers and fathers on this island, and tells her that with every breath he draws, an adult out  _there_ dies. He expects her to cry, but she does not, merely looks at him with a slight smile upon her face, and the snarl dies in his throat. He sees it then, that  _kiss_ she was talking about. Wendy has it too, right at the corner of her mouth, and he wants to steal it from her like he steals rubies and gems and gold – steal it and hoard it out of sight from anyone else, so it’s his and his alone. But he doesn’t tell her this – he just looks at the corner of her mouth, bites at his lip, and plots how he might take that phantom kiss from her mouth and make her more like himself and less like her mother. If she becomes a lost boy like the rest, she can come outside. She can dance around the bonfire to the music of his pipes.

He tries to take it many times. His dirtied fingers brush against her mouth, but it remains, right there in the twist of her smile. He tries to take it with thimbles, hard presses on his mouth against hers, tries to take it with words and actions, but it remains there, no matter what he does. He offers her pearls from the mermaids in exchange for that kiss at the corner of her mouth, but leaves without the pearls and without that kiss. It remains, no matter how hard he tries to take it and keep it within him. “Keep your kiss then!” he yells at her once, “See if I care a whit! You’ll stay in here until I have it anyway!”

He dreams of that kiss at the corner of her mouth, and is sure that  _that_ is the danger to him, the thing that inspires this nameless fear of Wendy. Without it, she’d be a lost boy like the rest of them, but he cannot take it from her. Not yet, anyway. It remains at the corner of her mouth, and while it does, it remains in the house he built her.

Sometimes he looks at the stars and wishes that kiss away. More often, he looks to the stars and wishes it will stay. That way, she remains his alone. If he can’t have her kiss, then he will have her, and tuck her into a place where she is his, and his alone.

**Author's Note:**

> This work was originally submitted to winterbones/Megan on her tumblr account as a gift, where it was first published.


End file.
